Starting With Me
by Thorne Lockehart
Summary: After taking Bobby Benton to see his girlfriend and son, Don goes to see an old flame. Post 7x11 "To What End?" Flack/OC possible oneshot. RnR


**_A/N: This is set post 7x11 "To What End?" Just a oneshot that's been sitting in my hard drive for a while..._**

**_Disclaimer: I do not own anyone in CSI:NY. I own Isabella Pacino.  
><em>**

**_Summary: After taking Bobby Benton to see his girlfriend and son, Don goes to see an old flame._**

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><p><em>If I had a dime for half the things I did<em>

_It didn't make no sense at all_

_I'd be livin' a little higher on the hog_

_If only I'd have known that later on down the road_

_I'd look back and not like what I see_

_I'd change a lot of things, startin' with me  
><em>

Jake Owen - Startin' With Me

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><p>Don pulled the cruiser up to the diner with Bobby Benton in the backseat. The young man deserved to meet his son, to be a father. Even if only for a few minutes. Don walked around and opened the cruiser door to help Bobby out. He looked around in bewilderment, his brown eyes meeting Don's blues.<p>

Don unlocked the handcuffs and shut the cruiser door. "Go ahead," he told him. When Bobby faced the diner where Ainsley was, Don had to add "Ten minutes."

Watching him jog across the street and see his girlfriend for the first time in five years and his son for the first time ever tore a hole in Don's heart. All of Bobby's antics had been to keep his son and girlfriend safe. Murder was never justified except in self-defense, although, Don knew he would have done the same in the younger man's shoes. He had been terrible to the few people who had been there for him through thick and thin.

In the wake of Jess's death, he had pushed away everyone in a fit of grief. Danny, Lindsay, Mac, Stella...and Isabella. Don had hated who he had become, not taking anyone else's feelings into consideration. He had physically pushed away Isabella to get to Jess in that diner, despite the fact the petite detective had taken a bullet to the shoulder. The look of utter hurt and shock in her blue eyes had haunted him to this very day. Don knew he needed to make things right with her, before it was too late. When ten minutes had passed, he knew his next stop after Central Booking. Isabella Pacino's apartment.

"Thanks, Flack," Bobby's quiet voice came from the backseat. "You don't know what that meant to me, y'know?"

Don tunelessly drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel. "Don't worry 'bout it," he wrote it off. The words came out harsher than he had intended. It was getting late and he wanted to see Isabella before it became too late. He helped Bobby out of the backseat and clicked the handcuffs on. When the officers escorted him into the precinct with little other than a nod, Don slid back in the car.

What words would he say to Isabella? An apology didn't seem good enough. Not for someone who had been there for him for eight years. A plead for a second, possibly third chance wasn't something he deserved.

His thoughts raced back to reality as he stood outside of her apartment building. Tito, her doorman, held out his arm.

"Whoa, Miss Pacino ain't here and I don't think she's expectin' you," he replied. Tito was a young guy, an ex-convict who adored Isabella. He kept an eye out for her with a vengeance.

"I know, I just wanted to talk to her," Don said. "When did she say she was going to be back?"

Tito furrowed his brow, clearly contemplating his answer. Don held up his badge. "I'm a friend," he informed him.

"She left about an hour ago. Said she was meeting up with someone," Tito said finally. Sadness nearly choked Don as the idea occurred to him that Isabella might be out on a date. Memories of nights shared, kisses stolen, and deep conversations came to the forefront of his mind. The idea that someone might be doing that with her set jealousy burning in his soul.

He would start with confessing that he had never stopped thinking about how he had treated her post-Jess. Before their roller-coaster relationship, he had been able to depend on her for anything. He would tell her that he would spend the rest of his life making up for it, if that was what she had wanted. Don had rarely talked to her outside of work and it was saddening to him. Nothing he could say could return the friendship back to its former glory.

Don would tell her that he missed her, that he missed her eccentricities. How she could go from a conversation about cereal to TV shows to how inaccurate weathermen could be. He missed the little things, like hearing her sing Disney songs while she worked. No one could sing "I Won't Say I'm In Love" from Hercules like she could.

He would tell her he had changed. That he had moved past Jess's death, that he was moving forward. The words she had uttered to Danny after he had been bound to his wheelchair for all that time still remained in his mind, ringing clear.

_It's not something you can get over. It's something you get through, and you can't do it alone._ Truer words had never been spoken.

Don didn't know how long he had been sitting on the front steps of her apartment building until he heard a very familiar Southern accent call his name.

"Donnie?"

He allowed very few people to refer to him as such, but he let Isabella.

"I want to talk to you alone," Don told her.

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><p><em><strong>So, what do you think? Should I continue, or keep it as a oneshot?<strong>_


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